Chiaroscuro
by Master of Shiawase Punch
Summary: College proves to be a difficult transition from high school for the Straw Hat Crew as affinity turns into aversion, romance to ruin, & interests collide. And what will ensue when Sanji asks Nami to model for a nude painting for his art class? Mostly SaNa
1. Chapter 1

**Ken's Note:**

Hai, folks! I go by Ken on the Internet, so keep that in mind for future 'Ken's Notes'. I finally managed to get a story on here! I never have time anymore... ;; Anyway...so the summary doesn't say all that I wanted to. In addition, I would like to add that I might end up rating this as M, only because I don't really know people's expectations anymore, and I'm just trying to keep your minds safe. There's no line between acceptable and not anymore, so it seems. :/ And yes, I deem some material as 'mind clouding' (i.e. descriptions of raunchy sex scenes and the like...). I know from experience, so don't bog me down with idiotic comments about my opinion because it was a rough road in time... I know the description speaks of a nude painting scene...well, it's going no further than that sexually. So all of you people who enjoy smut, tough crap; look elsewhere. I might go into detailed description about thoughts, but I'm only trying to keep to the naturalism of it. I DO NOT WISH TO STIMULATE YOUR HORMONAL THOUGHTS. That's not the point of this; I'm not writing to play games with pleasures and your decadence. I hold the sacredness of sex in high esteem, and refuse to have it presented in any indecent light. I also will use cursing and some raunchy dialogue, keeping to mild naturalism. I'm keeping the characters IN CHARACTER (none of that idiotic yaoi/yuri One Piece shit, and no, I'm not a homophobe...dumb asses...), and I will be using English spellings of names (Zolo not Zoro) because I prefer it. On a smaller note, this story does not play on the plotline: they aren't really 'pirates'. I'll be referencing from the original stuff, but it's not going to be the same thing, merely congruent. x)

And so, enjoy. Or don't. But review please, and try to type rationally and correctly. I'm OC, so it's hard for me to read reviews that are all 'lyk dis n hav no gramer or potential 2 b compreehanded at all!!111'. Danke, arigatou, gracias me ago, and thank you. ---Ken

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Sharing a room: it was the ONLY thing that had made her wince internally, cursing man's hideous common characteristic of sociality and the average person's ease with being so close in quarters with another human being.

Was she odd for thinking so? Nami didn't consider it odd of herself at all. It was disgusting to have to share a room so closely with someone else! She needed space to work, to breathe, to LIVE! But giving up a freedom such as personal space was a requisite of her college experience. Her circumstances were fated to be so; should she have been lucky enough to afford her own lodging off but near campus, she would have worried at said luck. It didn't have its place in her life, somehow---at least, not the good sort of it. She felt lucky enough to have been accepted into the college, under the impression that the student body was primarily comprised of highly intelligent individuals and talented young people with ambition and determination the size of the Grand Line. That was until she learned of the acceptance of a few select acquaintances who she deemed lacking in the smarts department. And they had received sports, science, and culinary scholarships! But for architecture? No, there was no such thing. The indignity of it all...

It didn't help that the dormitory room was so _small_ either. Her area for work in Arlong Park Industries was enough to cause a claustrophobe to go into cardiac arrest, but _this_ room was death in the form of an 8x8 shaped cube with a window facing due east. And that only added to her want of escape from the "cell".

"At least your beauty gets to compete against the sun's during the sunrise EV-ER-Y morning, sweetheart," came the voice of the tall blonde who helped her bring in some of her belongings. "I know you love competition!"

'..._Why did he always say these things?!_' She had decided to keep Sanji as a "friend" in case he should ever come in handy, and now she was grateful for her decision. As the other "product" of her decision entered the room, his mint green fuzzed top poking through a mound of soft suitcases, she looked over her baggage as it was coming in, trying to ignore the comment. Sanji took to musing through some of her articles of clothing as he emptied one of the large bags that he brought in. "But of course, Miss Nami, I know that you will always win that contest..."

"If you'd stop trying to create poetry every time you open that goofy mouth of yours," Nami snapped viciously, "you could get more done around here. And that does _not_ count looking through my undergarments!" She quickly snatched away the bag containing all of her underwear and brassieres before Sanji had the chance to get a good look.

"Yeah, such as getting our OWN belongings into our OWN dorm?" Zolo mumbled sarcastically, letting his burden fall heavily onto the floor ("Hey, be _careful_ with those!"). "Don't make me regret agreeing to be roommates with you, you perverted pansy. If you are only going to be catering to Nami and not taking care of your duties, then I'm going to give in to my second thoughts and deal out some painful consequences."

Sanji eyed the irritated Zolo with utter contempt, his gentle smile substituted with a fanged sneer. "I told you to stop calling me that, especially in the presence of others, ESPECIALLY in the presence of a woman who happens to be Nami. I'm not a pervert."

"Then what are you? Euphemism title: 'Pleasure-Seeker'?"

The two young men, testosterone levels rising at an alarming rate, were beginning to create a storm of animosity that Nami quickly sensed. She didn't need another fight to break out. One had already started when Zolo bet Sanji that he could carry more bags than he could; they each carried similar loads, but took to childish antics on the staircases and in the halls, attempting to trip one another up (and down) the stairs, and run the other into the walls. They had succeeded in both, and caused an uproar in the hallways with students who actually wanted to accomplish something...not that the two at odds would know anything about that.

"Okay okay, you guys did your work, thank you very much, now please: go do something rancid that guys usually do." Nami hurried the two confused "friends" out of her room and blocked off the entrance to the place securely with a shut door and locks (several of which she installed herself). She had time to set up her part of the room before her roommate would come through with her own personal belongings for set-up, so she was going to use all the time that she had wisely.

"Nothing better than a dump filled with bags and a high-maintenance complainer..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Ken's Note:**

If anyone's reading this story of bunk: I'm sorry, but the first few chapters are going to be a bit short and dry...I'm trying to get a bit of background in, and get a feel for where I should go with this. I hope it turns out as well as what's floating around in my head! I was thinking about turning it into a doujin, because I think it would flow better than in a story, but we'll see.

And I forgot to mention: If I make any grammatical errors or something is phrased awkwardly, or a word is used out of context with its definition, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT AND WHERE THE ERROR IS. Sometimes I just write awkwardly because it sounds right in my speech, but I hate obvious imperfections in English, and sometimes I overlook the errors I make at 2 in the morning after I've been awake for 22 hours already. And sometimes I start writing one thing, but my mind pulls into another, and I forget to delete select words. HAHA. And if you guys have any suggestions that I could include, please tell me those too! I like filler material; I hate stories that go straight to the climax...  
---Ken

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Sanji loved love. To love, to be loved, to have been loved, to will have been loved, and to will be loving. Actively, passively, in whatever tense (or perhaps pretense...) it showed itself, he embraced it---in most cases, literally---with the obsession of a childish fanatic. If he could have lived off of love in itself with all that it entailed, he would have placed water and food on lower priority. He admitted it, not only to himself, but to others, namely women, and usually only in situations where feelings took hold of him with a grip of complete subjugation and no chance of escape. But it was after these events that he was left with nothing except for the after effects of giving but not receiving, loving but not being loved, totally willing, and only to have his will crushed mercilessly by those women who wanted nothing to do with this womanizing puppy who trailed at their heels, begging for love where it wasn't and instead always ending up chewing on their truthless, baseless, words that filled him with some hope of acceptance. He was very familiar with the definition of the word 'falsehood', along with several examples to ensure its meaning. Was it him, them, both, or perhaps neither? Maybe it was his approach, his appearance, his impression? Should he adjust his demeanor to satisfy what each individual maiden sought, or is being himself the best way? Composure often was thrown to the wind as love surged in on the warm front of bliss and his thoughts of candlelit dinners prepared by him, warm fires, massages, and hot tubs, accompanied by his carrying through with affectionate kisses and shared seductive glances, which only ensued to a little bit more of "self-giving"...But that was all fantasy, a fantasy that was so far from reality that it was sickening to dream of its impossibility, yet Sanji constantly immersed himself into such fantasy more often than not.

It couldn't be helped. What was it about the female of the species that caused him to de-evolve mentally into some being with animal instinct? Was it just rudimentary biology: that he was man, and his complement woman? But then again, Zolo didn't open up and go wild like he did over the perfection of humanity, as he saw it. Perhaps it was some distortion of his genetics? Was it merely the excessive appreciation for this product of intelligent design by the Creator, the curvature symmetry of the female, her rounded pleasing features---flowing and rotational to his artists' eyes---that kept the thoughts in his head turning and whirring like oiled clockwork? Or maybe the appreciation of the radiance of womanhood through her actions and preferences? He did not know, and could not figure it out, but he did not much care. As long as there were several women surrounding him.

"Stop lusting and get your crap out of my area, blondie," came the seemingly distant voice of Zolo. "Help as much as you think about bunk and we'll have this room organized in no time."

Zolo always had a knack for knocking Sanji out of pleasurable reveries and ambrosial daydreams; Sanji loathed him for it. Could he not understand that it was those moments that made the day all worthwhile, that enabled him to get to sleep at night, and to continue sleeping almost as heavily as Zolo did through the late evening-early morning hours? Sanji, sitting on the floor with his back and head resting against the wall, rolled his eyes up and to the right to glare lethargically at the muscle mass labeled as---

"Marimo. If you could only learn to become entranced over what I do, we could maybe get along so much better."

Zolo fit a just-assembled bunk-bed frame into a corner, studied it over a bit, and then laughed after assuring his satisfaction. "Me, think like _you_?! I don't think so. As manly as it supposedly sounds by society, I don't waste my time on sexual fantasies, pornographic magazines, and masturbating after any time I view a seemingly attractive girl."

'_You moldy-haired bastard..._'

"_I DO NOT MASTURBATE_," Sanji yelled with a force that shook the single sad window frame facing north, the waves of his voice reverberating throughout the partially empty room. "And I don't look at those types of things either! Have you ever seen me with that shit?!"

Zolo contrasted the crazed look on Sanji's face with a smug expression, his smile slanted and brow creased in amusement. "A bit on the offensive, aren't you? Don't get so upset if you're secure that you aren't a perverted unsatisfied boy with a hormonal problem. And I don't believe that your thoughts are as pure as virginity in the Alps either. Your actions and words tell otherwise."

Sanji opened his mouth to respond with some sort of pithy comeback, but nothing came to mind, and any lie he could have mustered fell dead on his lips. He couldn't disagree; he did not have a flawless imagination in terms of what Zolo was talking about. His boiling blood froze instantly with realization that Zolo was right, and it felt like guilt in some tangible mass fell from the back of his throat down through the rest of his lean body. His silent stare, eyes smoldering with culpability and hatred, bore into Zolo's haughty glance, trying to hide the truth that he in fact had many voluntary and involuntary lustful thoughts about many of the girls he flustered over, undressing them with his eyes and wishing that they would shamelessly throw themselves at him in some fantastical situation where there was no wrong and everything was right. And that was just the byproduct of his average flirting, completely low-grade in comparison with his devotion for some of his 'favored' objects, one of whom was that orange-haired female anomaly of the human race who had just graced his sightline only mere minutes ago...

"No comebacks, no lies, right?" Zolo chortled, his eyes sparkling with triumph. "Now, move your junk over there and let's get this done so I can take a nap."

Sanji breathed arrhythmically like an asthmatic recovering from an attack as he organized his clothes in the dresser. 'Damn that burly thick-headed Neanderthal...I'll kill him if he ever stigmatizes me like that in _public_...I have respect for women, I do...I just...'

'_I can't back myself up on that.'_


	3. Chapter 3

**Ken's Note:**

I actually hate this chapter, so I don't blame you for hating it also. I wanted to get some pre-college stuff in though. I didn't know how else to do it than to introduce the antics of Luffy and Usopp. Oh well. Read and review I suppose...  
---Ken

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Everyone in high school knew that "those five kids" always hung around each other. It was a motley arrangement: two "clowns", one with an overly worn straw hat and the other with an abnormally long nose; a talented jock who had no time for anybody or anything except for the weight room; a classy yet Casanova-minded artist; and a level-headed miser with an affinity for trigonometry and physics. Luffy, Usopp, Zolo, Sanji, and Nami---the only female. Everyone knew their association, and no one bothered to try to _associate_ with any of them.

They had all managed to graduate from their medium-sized East Blue High School; they had all met there, and, strangely enough, had kept together throughout four long years. Everyone agreed it was an interesting group of friends, and why did they hang around each other? Even some from the group itself questioned the same thing...

Nami had grand expectations. She never desired any aspects of social life, instead opting to fulfill the reasons she attended school in the first place: studying, learning, and succeeding. She excelled in all of her classes; she wasn't the top student, but she exceeded her own personal quotas in what she found to be the most important. What was she going to pursue? She didn't know herself, but she knew that whatever it was, it had to make her rich. She had lived in poverty all of her life, attempting to help alleviate financial troubles by working at Arlong Park Industries, one the local fish markets, and then selling produce from the house to help pay the bills. And her older sister---Nojiko---wasn't going to let her stay around the house after high school for the rest of her life; she had already been disowned a few times already after some of her tantrums. Nami wanted to care for herself, pay for herself, live for herself: herself, and herself ONLY. So college was definitely in her future.

But the others? Nami sat on her bed, thinking of how the happenings in the past four months had actually come to pass. How had they ALL managed to get into _this_ college? Luffy barely could pass basic algebra in high school; this college was _supposed_ to be for students driven to better themselves, not those who _had_ driven themselves into the school pool, which Luffy and Usopp had decided to do before graduation. She laughed remembering the whole ordeal.

... She had been in the art room, finishing up the project assigned to her. Was that the one with paint? Yes, it had to have been, she thought to herself. She had leaned forward against the table which, unbeknownst to her, had wet paint plastered to it. Why didn't people clean up after themselves? Noticing her anger, Sanji, fellow student in the class, instantly rushed to her aid, offering to help clean up her "cute little shirt": now, if she'd only just let him slip it off and...#&!!! He automatically got slapped for that one. She furiously stomped to the sink, which had a window above it that showed a clear view of the pool. Zolo was swimming laps, training for his own purposes. Rinsing her shirt in cold water, she couldn't help but watch, his virile frame gracefully cutting the surface of the water with every stroke he made. She could never agree with the other girls and their hormonal obsession with almost every guy that they came into social contact with, but Zolo...he really was a different story. Smiling slightly, her daze had almost kept her from noticing a bright red beat-up car circling chaotically in the parking lot just beyond the pool fences. Who had a car like---oh God.

It was like a movie scene: the car braked quickly in its circling, its front grill reflecting the sun's rays cheerfully. Within moments, it raced forward, the engine whirring and tires screeching. Nami gasped just as the vehicle burst through the fence, the metal wire collapsing inward from the impact. It was only off of the pavement for mere split seconds before the car zoomed into the pool with powerful momentum. It happened so quickly, Nami couldn't process it. Water sloshed over the pool's edges as the car sank slowly to the bottom. In a blur, a few teachers had run to the scene, and somehow the perpetrators had managed to escape without a scratch, and supposedly, even a care! Usopp, hoisting Luffy over the edge of the pool, was laughing as hard as a drunkard on New Year's! And then _Luffy_ actually joined in! The kid who couldn't even swim, now doubled over with a laughing fit after attempting a stunt which could have killed him! Nami frowned at their ignorance. They could have died, and much worse..._where was Zolo_?!

Nami had yelled out, startling herself with the awful prospect of Zolo being pulled out of the water, mangled and crushed. A group of students in the classroom had noticed the panic from outside and now crowded around the large window, hoping for a glance. They all began questioning Nami about what she had seen when Zolo rose to the surface of the pool, gasping for air. She sighed heavily in relief as all of the girls surrounding her giggled and squealed when the toned Adonis lifted himself out of the pool, safe but totally prepared to kill Luffy and Usopp. The fun was over, and everyone dispersed back to their original stations, as if nothing had ever happened, Sanji scowling after the girls who further discussed Zolo and his physique. ...

And _how_ had those two ended up being accepted into the same educational facility that she did? Nami shook her head, smiling. It didn't seem logical, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise...somehow. She had a talent in getting an advantage with idiots like those...

But thinking optimistically wasn't one of her talents. Sighing, she laid back onto the cheap foam mattress and allowed herself to drift into a dreamless sleep, as devoid of emotion as she forced herself to be when awake.


End file.
